All the World
by Kenuck
Summary: When you're the victim of a crime, you can't help but feel like the world is watching you. Stella reflects when she returns to her apartment. [MacStella]


**Title**: All the World  
**Author**: Kenuck  
**Fandom**: CSI: New York  
**Characters**: Stella Bonasera, Mac Taylor.  
**Rating**: T  
**Warning**: Violence that may be considered explicit.  
**Spoilers**: Run Silent, Run Deep/All Access  
**Disclaimer**: "All the World" is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  
**Author's Notes**: Major "thanks" to **Brooke** for the quick beta and **Ragna **for the _Stella Bonasera / Mac Taylor / all the world _prompt from her addictive, not-so-random pairing generator.

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When you've a victim of a crime, you can't help but feel like the world is watching you. Everyone's eyes following you, judging your actions and decisions with critical scrutiny. They defile you, stripping you down to the bare structure of your being, so that they can tear you apart until you're alone and trying to pick up the pieces. 

I'm screaming inside when I return to my apartment and turn on the lights, to stare straight into the living space that had once been my sanctuary. It had been a place where I could hide from the vigilant monsters in the city, the ones who harm the victims I work with everyday. Then it hit me: How can I ever be sure of the people around me? I surround myself with good people both at work and outside of the lab, our friendships built solely on trust and common interests, but how can I completely know if someone who I talk to everyday, or sit beside on the subway, isn't a killer?

My trust in Frankie was strong, and my love for him evident. How was I to know he was suffering from an erotomanic mental illness that made him obsessive and sensitive to my rejection? It was only a week ago when I sat at my laptop, sipping a glass of red wine, the alcohol warming me as it spread throughout my body, that I discovered his perverse nature. That disturbing website he had made, the web address conveniently my last name, backwards (the same name he had announced as the small orange and white statute given to me) shattered my trust in him. I had watched in horror, as it played on my screen like a naughty e-mail attachment or download, my bare skin there, accessible to all.

I lock the door behind me, driving the heavy deadbolt home with a satisfactory _thud_ as it closes me off from the looming shadows and following eyes. Dropping my bag on the floor, I venture into the bathroom where the white bathtub is tainted with deep red blood. _My_ blood. At one end of the tub it is smeared, and the other end is decorated with droplets and a small puddle of the very substance that is pumping through my veins. A haunting memory had been created in this bathroom: it is where Frankie had left me in a panic; where I had sustained cuts to my fingers and hands with the razor blade that would free my bound wrists and ankles.

The scene brings stinging tears to my eyes as I remember how terror pulsed through my body, my mind working through my overdose on fear. I remember sitting in that tub and scanning every square inch for something I could use to free myself. A disposable razor at the other end of the tub had caught my eye and, with immense effort, I had maneuvered my body around so that my hands could reach up behind and grasp it. With trembling fingers I broke the razor behind my back and exposed the blade. The sharp edge of the metal pierced my flesh, and as I cut through the cord, I gritted my teeth to suppress the painful gasps rising in my throat.

Dropping the razor blade had been the biggest problem because searching for it through the collecting blood had been a difficult task. My bloody fingers grasped it and soon I was back to work, making erratic cuts through the phone cord tied around my wrists, the bind coming looser with effort.

I wipe my eye, forcing the tears back, and leave the bathroom, the blood swipe on the door catching my gaze for a moment. More evidence. More proof of what I've endured. Behind that door is where I had waited in silence with my heart beating hard in my chest, a mantra of words playing over in my head.

In the hallway sits the shopping bags where I had left them the day before, the contents still inside, and a full wine bottle, metal corkscrew still tight in the spongy brown cork, sits on the table where Frankie had been setting up a romantic dinner. Or what he thought would be a romantic dinner.

Careful, as if I'm at a new crime scene, I pick my way through my apartment, surveying the damage created the night before. Chairs have been knocked over and there are deep maroon bloodstains dried on my carpet, where the victim of this crime fell to his death. But that can't be right. _I_ am the victim. "You're not a CSI on this one, Stella, you're a victim," Mac had said at the hospital yesterday.

Me, a victim. Incurring harm, I was the one who suffered through the blinding pain of Frankie's manipulation and torture as he hit me, bound me, and attacked me. He nearly shot me, and if it weren't for his lack of gun technique, it would've been my body lying on the rug, my blood permeating deep in the floor covering.

I stand for a moment, remembering my nervous search through my handbag for my Glock. It's funny how when you need something, you can never seem to find it. But this had been unlike a lost remote control of set of keys – my life rested on the discovery of my gun.

Frankie had tackled me to the ground and fought me for the gun. I distinctly remember jumping to my feet quickly and looking at him to see my gun in his hands, the black barrel staring at me like a black hole in the ominous light. There was an eerie sparkle in his eyes that convinced me he was going to kill me. The snap of the safety as he had pulled the trigger gave me a rush of hope. Soon, the gun was in my hands. Pulled the safety, fired three shots.

The pop of the gun is fresh in my mind as I set a lamp upright and then move to where an armchair had been knocked over. I cannot clearly remember how these items had been knocked over, though I can only imagine that it was in a struggle.

Only when I'm halfway through cleaning up this broken home, do I pause and look back at the bloodstains on the carpet. The dark Merlot-coloured stain soaked deep in the dull yellow area rug is distracting. Every single fiber within the vicinity of the large, inauspicious stains contains Frankie's genetic information - his DNA.

A sharp sting burns in my sinuses as my tear ducts fill with teardrops. I can't stay here tonight. I won't be able to sleep or feel safe in this place, even if the door and windows are locked tight and I've checked behind every door and in every room with my gun. There is an unsettling feeling here that I can't shake. I'm not staying here tonight.

I move to my dresser and open the top drawer. Hastily, I shove the clothes into my black duffle bag. There is no time for perfection. "I'm not sleeping here tonight," I murmur to myself, so I can hear my voice again. The tall dresser has minute traces of dried blood spatter, but I'm too focused on my task of getting out of this hell house to notice.

When I'm packed, my duffel bag containing enough clothes for two nights away, I grasp the bag and look over at the dresser. There, on top of the finished wood sits Frankie's sculpture. The many faces on the base of the piece of art represented my visions of the world. The course orange scales, as he had said, was supposed to be symbolic of my tough exterior, while the white face protruding from the cracked, tangerine face was my pure angelic soul. Now the white skull is covered in red blood spatter; my pure angelic soul tainted with the spilt blood.

Turning away, I give the quiet apartment once last look-over, as if to corroborate the fact that I had been victimized in this place, and head for the door. I won't miss this place tonight. I won't miss the blood, the damage, and the daunting flashbacks. Once crime scene clean up has gone through my place, it might just go up on the market.

With my bag in my hand, I unlock the door and open myself up to the world again. I pull the door open to see Mac standing there, leaning against the wall. He followed me. He followed me because he knew I wouldn't be able to stay here. I don't know whether to turn around and go back in to claim my strength or break down and cry.

"Change your mind?" he says, his voice husky.

I hesitate in the open doorway and stare at the floor, tears welling once again in my eyes. "I can't do it, Mac," I whisper. My grip around the handles of my duffle bag tightens and I feel pricks of pain as my nails dig into the skin of my palm. The small cuts on a few of my fingertips sting, but I don't mind the pain.

"Oh, Stella." He moves forward and envelopes me in a warm, comforting embrace. I flinch as he touches me, but soon fall into the curve of his arms and rest my cheek on his shoulder. "Come on, let's get you a hotel room." He holds me for a moment or two as the tears flow freely from my eyes, onto his suit jacket.

Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I step back from him and close my door, locking it so that the world remains on the outside. Slipping my key in my pocket, I look up at him with glossy eyes. He gives a compassionate nod and turns in direction of the elevator at the end of the hallway.

As I walk with him, the gray carpet beneath my shoes, I muse at the sense of security I feel when I'm with Mac. I feel untouchable, as if all the world has gone away.


End file.
